Goldman Sachs's downramping was silly. It was more silly to sell out lithium stocks. We know the number and capacity of existing, under construction and planned gigafactories. The capacity is over 6TWh and the number of gigafactories are over 300 around 2031 now when they were only 3 in 2015.
Anyone can understand these numbers and can say "hey that's huge".
A lots of lithium supporters also say that finding a resource and mine it can take 8 to 10 years. That is correct and that's a big hurdle for supplying those battery gigactories.
But what the ordinary analysts of commodities can't understand is very critical. It is this, I leaned it on my post #:55936018 on Sept.2021. I am posting it here again.
BTW, as a note here, I never included the African resources on my tables and charts for last 3 years. After what has happened to a major African resource (not naming it here, you know what it is), you will understand why I did that.
NO SERIOUS EXPLORATION ACTIVITY HAS BEEN DONE FOR A NEW HARD ROCK LITHIUM PROJECT IN THE WORLD IN THE LAST 3 YEARS..!
NO NEW TIER-1 RESOURCE FOUND...
OTHER THAN LTR'S KATHLEEN VALLEY PROJECT
Just see the updated Hard Rock resources table below. We can see that all of the the other hard rock resources are in Quebec/Canada. That area is so cold its very hard and expensive to make exploration and development works there. Nemasca Lithium bankrupted and now it's in Livent's hands. Australian GXY had James Bay project there and couldn't have the courage to start development for a long time. Cost blow outs and burns companies there.
So when you look that table carefully you can see the value of LTR's KV Project.
And see below my opinions about the projects in Quebec/Canada.
The analysts of big investment banks and funds, and brokers haven't seen these facts as well as many others. Accordingly they didn't advise their clients properly. They were not aware that lithium was not commodity but a specialty chemical product while they didn't know "Not all lithium is equal"
They thought that lithium is everywhere, it was even considered the lithium in the sea water can be converted to lithium for batteries !!! That was foolish.
I am laughing to the strange geothermal brine story hype which is looming. I don't believe that story and time will tell the truth.
Here is the table below. These are facts. No hype.
The graphic below is also updated. It shows the KV project is at a critical and very valuable position.
The Pilgangoora Project of PLS and Wodgina Project of MinRes/Albemarle are both at the iron country (Pilbara). These are largest Australian hard rock project in size, but not in grade. They have problems with impurities firstly in the mined ore (especially iron). They also have the other unwanted minerals in the ground water which is used in floatation process and badly introduced to the lithium product again during floatation. Therefore it is being very hard for PLS to produce a SC6 standard 6% spod concentrate. LTR will produce much higher than 7% as well.
Water is the reason that LTR is taken a lot of ground around the KV project for collecting water for floatation process as they will need a lot water for whole ore floatation (They also got some more tenements other than the big tenements at the east of BHP's tenements. They are at the NE of KV project now, it was on the list of tenements on one of last anns, but I will not talk about it here now).
Another problem of Pilgangoora and Wodgina projects is to build chemical refinery (integrated project) at the region is very hard so while MinRes/Albemarle JV is not considering to build it at Pilbara or Port Headland they consider to transport the spod concentrate from Pilbara to Kemerton close to Perth. I don't know how they would do it. It's uneconomic IMO. It'd be better for them to sell spod to China from Port Headland port.
If anyone wants to know the importance of vertically integrated project he/she can see my post #:40748718.
If anyone wants to know about the problems of exploration and development progress in the Quebec/Canada and the Northern Ontario regions they can read the news below.
FMG and BHP are at bidding war for Noront Resources with high-quality nickel, chromite and copper. The area is close to Quebec and at the same parallel. It is said on the article;
"That’s the good news (resource is good).The bad news is that the area is remote and currently devoid of the infrastructure needed to begin development...Indeed, Noront has a chequered history of ownership - having seen off several major investors, including US heavyweight Cliff Resources, that have been financially burned after the stranded assets proved too expensive to develop as commodity prices moved around..."
That is the problem in Quebec. That's the reason GXY hasn't start development for a long time and Nemesca was bankrupted (and sold to Livent).
As you can see on the graphic above there are mainly 3 superior resource.
The high grade resource life of Greenbushes is limited with about 10 to 12 years.
That makes KV Project more valuable as its life will be more than 25 years (even may be 40 years by more drilling)
When we talk about Greenbushes mine; (as it was explained on my post #:39833185)
It is the highest grade, the lowest cost hard rock lithium mine in the world,
Iti is a mine which also has a very close cost (in LCE terms) to brine operations,
It is the mine which will produce the lithium hydroxide (in Tianqi and Albemarle refineries in WA) at a lower price than the LCE cost of lithium brine producers,
It can be a threat for all other lithium producers with its low price and high quality SC6 (SC6 standard was set by Greenbushes mine)
It was ramping up its production to 24mt spodumene concentrate, and maybe more ( but not sure the latest output).
Unfortunately for them but fortunately for the other producers, their high grade resource life is limited with about 10 to 15 years.
They have a resource in C3 lithium pit for 120mt @2.4% Li2O or 170mt at 2.00% Li2O.
By this pace of production (10mt a year ore process for 2.4mt SC6 production, plus new extensions) that deposit will last 10 to 15 years.
I don't think the Green Revolution will last 15 years! It is just started.
Just asked to myself many times;
Who is going to supply this much lithium ? (only for EVs)
It's amazing..!
LTR Price at posting:
$1.24 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)
